NKJV Teen Study Bible: A review

I have two boys, one a teenager and the other nearly there. With that in mind when I had the opportunity to review the NKJV Teen Study Bible I jumped at the chance. I like the NKJV (our current translation to use in family study/worship is the ESV) so having that is already a good start.

As far as layout is concerned this Bible is ok. There are no center column references. Actually there aren’t even many inline references either. This is a strike against it in my opinion. Otherwise the layout is pleasing enough. There are no red letters but that doesn’t bother me too much. I’m accustomed to them and I like having them there but in reality all of the Bible is from Jesus not just the words He physically spoke so having red letters sometimes lead people to believe that those words are somehow more important. There isn’t a lot of color either (blue) but that’s ok.

The comments, in my opinion are not at a level I would want for kids in their upper teens. Perhaps the lower teens. Which means this particular Bible won’t have a long shelf life. I think by the time kids are in their late teens they should be asking deeper questions about their faith than I think this is equipped to handle.

Lastly, and perhaps the most concerning, my kids weren’t interested in this particular Bible at all. There have been others that they were really into. Some I’ve even reviewed here. This is not one that they particularly like. That’s important because if your kid doesn’t want to read it (for whatever reason) then the Bible is of no use to them. I asked why they didn’t seem to like it and I didn’t get clear answers. Perhaps it was some intangible thing about the way the text is displayed. But it didn’t get a positive reaction at my house.